Cocoa beans are produced by cocoa trees which are found in a warm, moist climate in an area about 20.degree. latitude north and south of the equator. The cocoa tree produces leaves, flowers and fruit in all seasons of the year. The ripe fruit or pod, resembles a long cantaloupe and contains twenty to forty almond-shaped cocoa seeds. Each cocoa seed comprises an inner portion or nib which is covered by a shell or hull. The smaller the cocoa bean the tighter the shell or hull is affixed by natural adhesion to its nib or inner portion. The shell or hull of the bean comprises about twelve to fifteen per cent of its weight while the nib and trapped moisture approximately eighty-five to eighty-eight percent. When these seeds are removed from the pods, fermented and dried, they become the commercial cocoa bean.
Various conventional processes heretofore have been employed to extract cocoa butter and cake from commercial cocoa beans. The initial steps of such processes attempt to clean and remove the naturally affixed shell or hull of the bean from its nib or inner portion. Such processes may utilize a disc type shell cracking apparatus as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,417,078(W. T. Jones) to shatter the cocoa beans along the natural fracture lines of its cocoa nib. Pressurized air systems have also been employed to transport a continuous volume of cleaned and roasted cocoa beans through an elongated tube or pipe and into contact with a flat target plate. As the cocoa beans strike the conventional flat target plate, they shatter and fracture(nib and affixed shell fragment) along the natural fracture lines of its nib. These type processes utilize equipment which is expensive to procure, construct and maintain and requires enormous amounts of energy to operate. Other problems have arisen with the use of conventional air transport systems due to the fact that they are designed to clean and fracture large volumes of cocoa beans very rapidly. As this large volume of cocoa beans strike the conventional target plate, some of the beans are prevented from properly contacting the stationary target plate due to the ricochet effect of the first portion of beans being fractured blocking the path of travel toward the target plate of a secondary portion of beans being processed. Accordingly, this secondary portion of beans is not fractured during its initial passage through the shattering step and must be recycled or as in most cases, continues on through the process as unfractured beans. This reduces the efficiency of this type process to produce cocoa butter and cocoa cake free of unfractured cocoa beans and shell fragments.
New state and federal carcinogenic health standards limit the amount of cocoa shell or hull in the collected cocoa nib to less than 1.75 percent by weight. Accordingly, additional screening and more efficient shell cracking equipment would have to be employed as additional recycling steps to these conventional processes to approach compliance with these standards.